Catwoman and Bourne Supremacy

[Kai Lord]

Innocent girl? We're talking about someone who was deeply involved in running a black ops squad. She helped to coordinate assasinations. Just because she's young, cute and female doesn't mean she's innocent.

She ran psyche evaluations on government assassins. She had nothing to do with Bourne's predicament.

 

[SkeletonKey Ed]

She ran psyche evaluations on government assassins. She had nothing to do with Bourne's predicament.

She also delivered an assassination order to a Treadstone guy in the first movie to kill Bourne. She was far from innocent and it's not like he killed her in cold blood or even hurt her. Now she just needs a psyche evaluation of her own.

 

[mmu1]

She ran psyche evaluations on government assassins. She had nothing to do with Bourne's predicament.

Heh... Then you must have been really broken up when Danny Soren (sp?) who had about the same level of involvement as she did, got himself knifed.
Oh, wait, Danny was a nerdy guy... Danny who?

I'm not saying she was responsible for Bourne's current problems, just that, as a CIA operative who coordinated a squad of assassins, she was hardly "an innocent girl". She was as guilty as everyone involved in Treadstone (including Bourne).

 

[Harp]

I'm not saying she was responsible for Bourne's current problems, just that, as a CIA operative who coordinated a squad of assassins, she was hardly "an innocent girl". She was as guilty as everyone involved in Treadstone (including Bourne).

I agree completely, but there's no denying that it was a damnably impressive scene, undoubtedly made all the more harrowing by her being young, attractive, and terrified...perhaps leading to the illusion of "innocence". Hat's off to Stiles for her work in it.

 

[Kai Lord]

Heh... Then you must have been really broken up when Danny Soren (sp?) who had about the same level of involvement as she did, got himself knifed.
Oh, wait, Danny was a nerdy guy... Danny who?

Is Danny the guy who got knifed by the BAD GUY? No, I didn't have a problem with it, because it was quick and that's what bad guys do. When the hero of the picture targets an innocent in a drawn out and disturbing manner, I'm a little less entertained.

I'm not saying she was responsible for Bourne's current problems, just that, as a CIA operative who coordinated a squad of assassins, she was hardly "an innocent girl".

Uh, that's exactly what she was if she had nothing to do with Bourne's current problems. I never said "innocent of all wrongs every second of her life including stealing cookies from the cookie jar when she was five." As far as Bourne's predicament was concerned, she was innocent, and that's why I wasn't into the terror tactics he pulled on her.

This was a summer cat and mouse thrill ride, not some serious psycho drama on the human condition as it relates to government assassins. Those scenes were realistic and very well done, but I don' think they fit the tone of the movie.

 

[Desdichado]

This was a summer cat and mouse thrill ride, not some serious psycho drama on the human condition as it relates to government assassins. Those scenes were realistic and very well done, but I don' think they fit the tone of the movie.

I think you're mistaking the tone of the movie with the way you would have done it if you were the film maker.

 

[Kai Lord]

I think you're mistaking the tone of the movie with the way you would have done it if you were the film maker.

If I was the filmmaker I would have had Matt Damon threaten Julia Stiles with a walkie talkie only after she shot at him at point blank range and missed.

 

[mmu1]

Uh, that's exactly what she was if she had nothing to do with Bourne's current problems. I never said "innocent of all wrongs every second of her life including stealing cookies from the cookie jar when she was five." As far as Bourne's predicament was concerned, she was innocent, and that's why I wasn't into the terror tactics he pulled on her.

Ah... You certainly seem to have a very different view of Bourne than the one I came away with. (Or, judging by the responses, many other people here came away with.) Bourne is the hero of this movie, but he is not, nor was he ever, The Good Guy, and the movies were never just straightforward cat-and-mouse summer flicks with a stereotypical hero - that's what made them good.

 

[Kai Lord]

Ah... You certainly seem to have a very different view of Bourne than the one I came away with. (Or, judging by the responses, many other people here came away with.) Bourne is the hero of this movie, but he is not, nor was he ever, The Good Guy

Sure he is. There's nothing evil about wanting to be left alone and not hunted by killers. But risking life and limb to

Spoiler

find a girl in Moscow and tell her the truth about her parents to relieve her of the pain unique to not knowing the truth about a loved one's murder

? Unquestionably good.

And

Spoiler

showing mercy to your archnemesis and the man who killed your beloved by sparing their lives

? That's a defining level of "goodness" that distinctly separated him from the "bad guys."

Bourne may not have had a halo over his head, but he was definitely the good guy.

Interestingly enough, I went over to rottentomatoes.com to read some review excerpts on the movie and found this audio link from Richard Roeper's review. It actually has a tiny clip from the Julia Stiles scene:

http://tvplex.go.com/buenavista/ebertandroeper/mp3/040627-bourne_supremacy.mp3

EDIT: And make no mistake Bourne Supremacy is as "straight forward" a cat and mouse spy thriller as they come. All the formulaic ingredients are there. That doesn't make it a bad thing. What elevates it above the usual "superhero spy" fare is that Damon's Bourne actually feels remorse for questionable deeds of the past and seeks to make amends. That's what grabbed me about his character.

I didn't get that during the Stiles encounter. It was inconsistent with the rest of the film, IMO. I'm sure many people think that scene was particularly kewl just for the fact that it was so "hardcore." I just wasn't into it.

 

[Harp]

I think the "good" actions you describe speak more to the complexity of Bourne's character than any inherent heroic quality. I think we developed a lot of sympathy for the guy based on his bout with amnesia (during the first movie and continuing into this one) and

Spoiler

the fact that his girlfriend gets murdered

. But there's obviously some part of his psychological make-up that allowed him to be trained as an assassin in the first place, so we know he ain't Galahad.

Back to the Stiles scene, though. I may be forgetting something, but was there any reason for Bourne to think that Stiles was not somehow involved with what was happening to him in the movie?